ASC-PLOT3(1)

📦
version 7.44.0 · 2 versions
, in nixpkgs unstable

✨ ASC-PLOT3(1) ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the BRL-CAD corner of the manual — this one's called asc-plot3 and it's honestly such a little workhorse 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

asc-plot3 — turns an ASCII representation into Plot3 instructions, no cap 💅

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

asc-plot3 [-h] [-?] [file.in [file.plot3]]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so basically, asc-plot3 reads a stream of ASCII data that represents Plot3 instructions, and converts it into binary plot3(5) format. iconic behaviour honestly 💖

if you don't hand it file names, it reads from standard input and writes to standard output. lowkey the default-est defaults that ever defaulted.

your input should be lines that look like this:

c arg arg ...

where c is one of the single-character Plot3 command names, followed by white-space-separated arguments of the appropriate number and type for that command. so like, the right amount of args, of the right type — it's giving "read the room" energy, yk? 👑

optional white space is ignored, and so are lines that begin with the comment character # ✨ (yes bestie, you can leave notes for yourself, live your truth)

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -h, -? — prints a usage message and then dips. exit stage left, periodt 🚪
  • file.in — the input ASCII file containing the plot3 instructions. if you don't specify it, or if you pass -, standard input gets read instead 🍓
  • file.plot3 — the output file where the binary plot3 data gets written. if you don't specify it, standard output is used.
⚠️ heads up bestie: asc-plot3 will straight-up refuse to write binary plot data to a terminal. it's protecting you, fr fr. respect the boundary 💀

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

Example 1. Convert an ASCII plot3 file to binary

asc-plot3 data.asc data.plot3

this converts the ASCII file data.asc into a binary plot3(5) file named data.plot3. chef's kiss, done 🎀

Example 2. Draw a box and view it on a framebuffer

printf 's 0 0 100 100\nm 10 10\nn 90 10\nn 90 90\nn 10 90\nn 10 10\n' | asc-plot3 | plot3-fb

okay so what's happening here — the s command sets the drawing space to the square (0,0)-(100,100), then it moves the pen and draws four connected line segments forming a box 🦋 and then the resulting binary plot3 stream gets piped directly into plot3-fb(1) so it displays on a framebuffer. pipeline slay, literally 💜

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

plot3-asc(1), plot3-plot3(1), plot3rot(1), plot3-fb(1), libbv(3), plot3(5) — go read those too, iykyk 👑

🌟 AUTHOR 🌟

the BRL-CAD Team 🫶

This software is Copyright (c) 1991-2026 by the United States Government as represented by U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

💌 BUG REPORTS 💌

if you find a bug or a problem, report it via electronic mail to devs@brlcad.org 📧 — they wanna hear about it, fr fr

and that's the whole page bestie!! this one came straight out of the BRL-CAD manual set, dated in that copyright range of 1991-2026 — go forth and plot things 💖✨🎀🦋🌸

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